Just re-read the Roland G-70 thread and resisted the temptation to critisize this board once more for fear of being sent to purgatory ! (still don't like it though).
but what I am getting more and more curious about is the amount of styles people want and what they actually do with them ?
Let me explain.
I have here at home several CDroms containing 10.000 Yamaha styles, 6000 ketron styles, 5000 Roland styles, 3000 Korg styles,etc. so I guess that by some of your standards I should be having a ball ??!!!
Currently I only play the Korg PA-50, which ,fortunately has approx. 300 internal styles that can be replaced. All in all (i.e. including the user styles) I can therefore load approx. 360 NEW styles into the board. Naturally I keep on changing things from time to time but even now after three years of fairly extensive use I still have more than 50 styles currently residing in my board that could easily be chucked out (perhaps even more). Once in a while a truely great or useful style comes along which is then directly included of course.
I sometimes wonder if lots of keyboard folks have them on their toast instead of peanut butter. The number of styles, like the number of sounds really, has never made me very happy. I'd rather have a board with 100 great styles and no options than a board with 300 styles and a harddisk or whatever that stores another 10.000 !!
Same with sounds really. Have you ever counted the number of right-hand sounds that you really use a lot, regardless what keyboard you are playing ??? You'll probably be lucky to hit 20 or so !!!!!

regards,
john

John I have simular library of styles...What do I use? About 30 styles..and a dozen right hand sounds..

What I like about the massive style library...it gives me everything I need to edit and design my own styles..especially for particular songs that I need to design/edit exsisting styles..

The library is also usefull if I have to clone a different instrument..maybe a client that is use to hearing a Korg i30...no problem I load the i30 styles to a disk,and the styles they want are ready[only better on my Roland]..

During the past five or so years I've sorted through thousands of style files, most of which ranged poor to awful. However, once in a while you come across one that is just incredible. Those are the ones that now reside on my USB Thumb Drive and get used on a regular basis. There are lots of conversions out there, but great styles are usually among the orrignials found on the keyboard. I'll keep searching for more, though, and when I find some good ones, I be sure to post them.

Cheers,

Gary

Hi John: I'm a relative newcomer on the subject of arranger keyboards and styles but I am grateful that talented people take the time to create the styles available. Of course, not all styles are useful to me but, as a songwriter, it is like panning for gold when a great find shows up. The latest group of Roland G70 styles have aided me alot in creating several new songs. My partner and I use styles to help us create demos of our new songs. Without them (styles) our stuff would sound pretty plain vanilla. With styles, we are able to present our music the way we envision that it should be heard.

Viva Technology! RICE

I usually use only a few sounds - be it the synth or be it the guitar. After a while of composing songs with those sounds I often reach the point where I want to have something new. Then the time has come for me to search for new sounds either via internet or via self-made production (for example: sampling).
If I've searched through hundreds of sounds I usually reach the point where I don't want to see a computer or synth any longer. Until this time I've mostly found the new sounds I'll need in the following part of my life.
I think this is called 'Yin' and 'Yang' and means the up and down of our destiny...

------------------
Greetings from Frankfurt (Germany),
Sheriff ;-)

Hi all - when you play/gig for 5 hours on the trot like I do from time to time, you get through a lot of material and it isn't good entertainment to use the same style files/rhythms regularly...
So I keep and use in excess of 500 style files all specific to particular songs to provide variation.
Rog

a friend of mine started to colect alot of sounfonts, a couple of years ago, and he finished having about few thousands of them. some of them quite impressive as they sounds. i kept telling him he should stop searching like crazy for everything new and focusing more on creativity, combination of this already huge sound banks he had. after a while, sf sounds became obsolete, and now he started to put togheter everything that's called vst, giga, and so on.
i repeated the steatement to him and finally he agree with me!

the chances to get everything that comes out on the market is soo pour anyway. instead would be much better to use at maximum the best you already have! at least i try this way!

20 styles /20 sounds is all I need or ever use on stage to make a living
Don't forget it's the "TALENT" you can't buy!!

Good to hear Roger, because I've really been a guest where arr. kb's
have been used, and it was the very same onboard 8 beat, slow rock or
whatever "favourite" used all the time, all songs sounded about the
same way, no differences other than the lyrics.


Myself I love to explore styles, use different parts to pull together
and tweak to a new one etc. and there is always something to learn.
Styles may sometimes look very similiar, but there are always subtle
distinctions and shades to find who might make it very suitable for a
song you're playing or fit your need and taste the way you play it.

Long time since I lost counting, but I'm still hounting for new stuff.
Guess it's a kind of "never ending story".

GJ

I break down my styles into beats and patters necessary to cover all types of songs; from 6/8 slows songs to Latin, etc. The problem I face is with Jazz Fusion, Dance, and Rock songs and getting the right groove. To that end, I have searched for 100's of styles to cover the myriad of beats and feels necessary.

For example; What style would you use for Billy Joel's "Shades of Gray" or Paul Simon's "You can call me AL"?

So what I do, I use the Tyros hard disk with folders that mirror the preset styles in memory. When I want my custom style, I use the USER DISK button and then press the PRESET style button to recall my favorite styles.

The other thing is do is make use of Gary's Gig Disks to help me find that right style (Thank you Gary!!!!). And also, the music finder is a big help in connecting styles to songs.

But I must say, I do use my inventory of 1000's of styles to filter out the "BEST of the BEST" and then put them in my USER DISK Folder on the Tyros hard disk.

Al

John,
I'm with you on this one. Give me 20 to 30 good styles and 20 good voices and I don't need anything else. Uncle Dave and a few others had expressed the same sentiments in past posts.

Tom

Nowadays there is so many who are gigging by use of arranger kb's who
don't need a single style anymore, because only using the midifiles or
sequensed songs as backing-tracks all the way, so when use a little of
this and a little of that I guess 20 styles will be enough?

20 styles for a evening gig seems to be a kind of short if you use only
the styles as accomp when play 4 - 5 hours, but I guess when we know
modern kb's have styles with two or more intros, endings and variations,
one style can easily be used at least for two songs, so then 20 styles
all that sudden cover 40 songs.

But then again, you're kind of stuck to play songs who fit to that styles,
rather than find a style suitable to the songs you want to play, and that
is a reason why I just don't have enought with 20, specially since I don't
play the bass manually by left hand as UD and many other does.

GJ

Hi folks,

Interesting to learn your views on this, but one of the main reasons for putting it up is the fact that the new top arranger keyboards all boast enormous storing capacities, one way or another that is. (harddiks, sticks,etc.etc.)
My point is that if you basically only use say 100 styles and 100 sounds, with the odd exception here and there, why set such great store by the merits of these huge storing capacities, as if they are one of the most important factors in an arranger keyboard.
Sure, you will need lots of space if you go into midifiles or into samples, but as far as samples is concerned I am under the impression not many arranger performers dabble in this area, and if you are way into midifiles there are all sorts of solutions there. In short, it is my belief that if an arranger keyboard can harbour a few hundred styles and sounds in its internal memory, and virtually all of them can, the need for extensive storage on the keyboard itself for more styles and sounds is of very secondary importance. Like Gunnar said, and belief me this is an area in which I have acquired some expertise you can actually turn one style into a number of others that hardly bear any resemblance to the "mother"style.
I guess it all came about due to my friend's boasting of how many styles the new Roland could harbour and load and drop within a spit second..........................
regards,
john

The large style library also allows me[or you]to go through the selections and put a name of a song to the style name[rename]..This way when you scan or look at the style names ,it will give you song suggestions..It involves a little work, but can be worth while...just think , 2 or 3 thousand songs ready for you to play instantly[not SMF's]..

One more advantage the large library offers me with my Roland [G1000]...saving all the settings, the style[named as a song] and right hand sounds,controls, tempo etc.
The G1000 loads 192 performances ,with quick loads of additional groups of 192[a few seconds to load a new group]..

[This message has been edited by Fran Carango (edited 03-15-2005).]

The "huge" storage capacities we see are additional for some kb models and
became standard on some or most of the top models.
As we see that we can store lyrics, scores, mp3 etc. to use when play, this
is important. More soundsamples and use of the sequencer increase the need
of more storage I guess.
Also the prices for HD's and other storage mediums are as low that this did
not increase the price of the keybard very much as we could see earlier on.

Myself I really love to have all needed stuff onboard without have a load of
diskettes floating around, and hopefully the next thing they make huge is a
screen like we have on the laptops, 17" or 19" colour widescreen to fold up
when use the keyboard.

GJ

I sincerely belive the main advantage of acquiring large numbers of high-quality styles is it provides your audiences with diversity. Granted, there seems to be a number of styles that get lots of use, the same as there are a small number of voices that are used more than others. However, after a while I find this has the tendency to make many performances sound repetitive.

Consequently, this was inspiration to create the first gig disk, which for me was the best way to organize hundreds of style files, many of which had the same names. And, when the PSR-3000 became available, those disks, along with others, were transferred to the USB thumb drive. Sure, this all takes a fair amount of work, but it's worth ever minute you spend. By renaming those style files, Big-Band-Fast, Slow Rock, etc, to song titles, and having the ability to select them instantly, you can create your own library of songs, one that can be accessed on the fly. The styles can be linked directly to registrations, all of which can be stored on the thumb drive or smart media card. What a wonderful tool for OMB entertainers.

While the new arranger keyboards offer huge numbers of excellent styles and voices, there are some that many of us will likely never, or at least rarely, ever use. Many of the techno beats and similar genre styles are not suitable for my audiences. However, I'm confident that for some performers, those same styles will be useful.

I'll continue to search through the myriad of style files, play every one of them, evaluate their quality, and more than likely continue to discover one in a hundred that has sufficient quality to be used during my performances. If I only found a dozen new styles each year, that's OK, becuase that translates into a dozen good songs. That's what keeps those creative juices flowing. Kinda' like Uncle Dave when he discovers a new keyboard--only I didn't spend as much money.

BTW: Just a foot-note about the gig disks. At last count, there were in excess of 125,000 downloads since the first one was posted a little over 2 years ago.

Cheers,

Gary

[This message has been edited by travlin'easy (edited 03-15-2005).]